MINUTES OF THE MEETING
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NOVEMBER 5, 2014
PRESENT:
Berlin Ray, Boboc, W. Bowen, Delatte, Delgado, Ekelman, Elkins,
Engelking, Fodor, Granot for Jayanti, Gross, Hampton, Henry, Hoffman,
Holland, Holtzblatt, Holsinger, Jackson, Kalafatis, Karem, S. Kaufman,
Kosteas, Krebs, Lazarus, Little, Liu, Lupton, Margolius, Marino,
Mazumder, Nawalaniec, Niederriter, Robichaud, Shukla, Spicer, Sridhar,
Visocky-O’Grady, Wang, Wolf.
Artbauer, M. Bond, Dumski, Ford, Mageean, Ramos, Sawicki, Yarbrough,
Zachariah.
ABSENT:
Galletta, Gorla, Inniss, Jayanti, Majette, May, O’Neill, Rashidi,
Storroud-Barnes, Talu, Zingale.
Berkman, Boise, Bowling, C. Brown, Halasah, Hill, Jadallah, Karlsson,
LeVine, V. Lock, Mazzola, McHenry, Novy, Parry, Sadlek, Spademan,
G. Thornton, Triplett, B. White, Zhu.
ALSO
PRESENT:
F. Smith, J. Yin.
Senate President Nigamanth Sridhar called the meeting to order at 3:05 P.M.
I.
Approval of the Agenda for the meeting of November 5, 2014 Meeting
Dr. Sridhar announced that the Minutes of the September 10, 2014 meeting were
not yet ready for approval. They will be ready for approval at the December 2014 Senate
meeting. Dr. Sridhar then asked for a motion to approve the Agenda. It was moved,
seconded and the Agenda was approved unanimously by voice vote.
II.
Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of September 10, 2014
As reported, the September 10, 2014 Minutes will be ready for approval at the
December 2014 Senate meeting.
III.
Report of the Faculty Senate President
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Senate President Sridhar stated that this semester is moving fast. He has been
telling his students that the semester is moving fast and then he realized that it was
moving fast because the course he is teaching went from four credits to three credits.
Dr. Sridhar noted that he has a few items to report on before we get on with our
Agenda. He stated that he is sure that everyone has had some time to look at the program
accreditation report that the Provost gave us (Senate) a few weeks ago. He hopes that
everyone has also taken the time to think about the report, how it impacts their programs
and people should make it a point to bring that up with the Provost’s Office quickly. He
stated that this is the first chance that faculty have had to see anything in this process so
we should be all in this thing.
Dr. Sridhar stated that the Provost has been making her rounds across campus.
There have been three meetings so far with one meeting in each of the Colleges of
Sciences and Engineering. There was also an open meeting across campus and there are
more meetings planned over the next couple of weeks. A schedule is posted on the
Provost’s web page. He asked everyone to look at that schedule and make it a point to
attend these meetings. He added that if anyone can’t go to the meeting in their college
because of a time conflict perhaps, feel free to go to another college’s meeting. The
content of these discussions are pretty similar across colleges so everyone should be able
to attend these meetings even if the meeting is not in their college.
Dr. Sridhar reported that he did have an interesting discussion at the Steering
Committee meeting. He won’t say that much came out of it – there still are a lot of things
that need clarification but we are hopefully moving towards clarification.
Professor Sridhar stated that one matter he has brought up with the Provost
several times is tenured-faculty hiring. We have sort of a hiring freeze this year. There
are precious few faculty searches going on so he asked Provost Mageean if we should
expect the doubling of the number of searches for next year and she has not decided yet.
All of the positions that we would normally search for this year will be added to next
year’s set. We should have a busy time as faculty serving on search committees.
Dr. Sridhar noted that one thing he has asked the Provost about is that we speed
up the process of approvals so that other than defeating the authorizations for searches in
the middle of summer, that we actually begin in the middle of spring so that we can
actually go to writing our ads and forming our search committees during spring term so
that we can actually get ahead of the curve in terms of hiring. He noted that this is
another thing that he has received a positive response on from the Provost.
Dr. Sridhar reported that there was a TEDx event on campus a couple of weeks
ago – he said he didn’t know if anyone attended. He said he wanted to thank Dean
Joseph Mazzola for actually making that happen and everybody else that was involved in
putting that together. The event was fantastic and the speakers were great. Two of our
colleagues, Professors Eric Ziolek and Lynn Deering gave a nice presentation and also
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one of our doctoral students gave a very interesting talk. He added that he is already
looking forward to next year’s event.
Dr. Sridhar stated that at the end of the summer this year, the President convened
the Task Force for Enrollment. He noted that he had made mention of that at Senate
before. He wanted to give a quick status update on that committee. Dean Craig Boise is
the chair of the committee and there are also three faculty members: Bill Kosteas, Jordan
Yin, and himself. He reported that the Task Force has been looking at forces, mostly
external forces that have to do with the number of students attending CSU. There was a
presentation that the Task Force chair made at the September Board of Trustees meeting.
He said that he is sure that everyone saw the Plain Dealer article that came following that
which had a really unfortunate title that said, “CSU is Searching for its Identity.” There
was one bullet point and one slide in the presentation but that’s what we get in the
headline. The Task Force has been looking at a more holistic view of the enrollment
particularly making it a point to clarify to the Board and everybody else involved that it is
not just the matter of keeping students on the campus but actually getting them out of
here with degrees. That is the larger share of things. He noted that we will have a report
later today from Dr. Barbara Margolius, chair of the Student Success Committee, and
some of the issues that that committee has been looking at.
Dr. Sridhar said that as everyone remembers, last year we approved a new
instrument for student evaluation of instruction. It is delivered at the beginning of the
semester, usually the time when departments are putting together packets to send to
classes, but he has been informed that there is a delay on this. Vice Provost Teresa
LaGrange’s office has informed us that there is a minor problem with Purchasing and the
forms didn’t get here on time. He believes that the forms will be going out next week.
There has been a communication sent out to all department chairs saying to hold off on
using paper forms. He advised people to check back with their departments if they
missed the communication and wait for the new forms. There is also a pilot of the
electronic system we are using, this is Blue that the university has purchased and a small
number of faculty have volunteered to try out the system. Professor Sridhar noted that
this is an important change and we want to make sure that we fully understand the
ramifications of doing this before we actually make the change.
Dr. Sridhar reported that there is a new draft policy on the copyright of materials.
He noted that all of us are refreshing that page all of the time on new policies and if
anyone has questions about the policies, look there. There is a policy on use of copyright
materials. The Office of Compliance is involved in putting this policy together. It is now
up for comment for a thirty-day period until November 14, 2014, about ten days or so.
Faculty may have received information from their Steering representative about this. He
recommended that faculty look on the compliance page, look at the policy to see how it
may impact them and, if it does, provide feedback. He added that this is important. He
noted that Professor Jeff Karem would also bring this item up as part of the UFAC
(University Faculty Affairs Committee) report later today.
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Dr. Sridhar stated that one thing the Steering Committee noticed at its meetings
last month was that a greater number of Senators have to leave in the middle of Senate
meetings to go to class. The Steering Committee believes that it may be because the
university switched to a new scheduling grid but they didn’t think about whether it
impacts Steering meetings as well. Steering will talk about this issue at its next meeting.
He has received a report from the University Registrar’s Office with faculty teaching
class times and, for those of us in the group, how many people are impacted, etc. He
asked that if anyone has any feedback on this issue, particularly if faculty would mind
moving the meetings up by thirty minutes to start at 2:30 PM, to please let their Steering
representatives know so that Steering can discuss this issue.
Dr. Sridhar reported that there was a meeting last week about textbook
affordability with representatives of Student Government and representatives from the
Book Store. They talked about a few issues regarding textbook prices and one of the
things that came up particularly while he was sitting in the room, was that if faculty could
use books on a longer term basis and use the same textbook for three or four terms as
opposing using them for one term, that can have a strong positive impact on textbook
prices. He noted that this will be an ongoing conversation and he will come back and talk
about this
Professor Sridhar reported that the CMSD levy passed and this means that the
Campus International School will actually get a building so they won’t be in CSU
facilities but on campus with a new building. He added that this will be fantastic. He
noted that there would be a presentation from the principal of the STEM School later
today. That is a very interesting thing for us to listen to. There have been a couple of
minor hiccups. Whether or not this is minor, it is a different matter but they are having
hiccups with getting the students in the STEM School in facilities like the recreation
center or PESOP classes, etc. and hopefully those issues will be resolved in good time.
Finally, Dr. Sridhar gave a quick update on a couple of other major proposals that
are moving through the system. We finally have a proposal to create a new Honors
College and that is now in the Senate committees – the University Curriculum Committee
and the Admissions and Standards Committee are looking at the proposal. We should see
the proposal in Senate as soon as the committees finish their review.
Dr. Sridhar mentioned the matter of curriculum approval software that Senate
talked about before and recommended that we purchase. The Provost has submitted a
budget request for the purchase of the curriculum approval software as well as for
centralizing catalog preparation in the Registrar’s Office. Once that request is approved,
we will be able to move forward on those.
Ms. Janet Stimple, University Registrar, noted that we already have approval for
the software.
Dr. Sridhar commented that he will keep everyone informed on the progress of
the software but we are already getting there which is fantastic.
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Report of the President of the University
President Ronald Berkman was not at Senate and there was no report.
V.
Report of the Provost and Chief Academic Officer
Provost Deirdre Mageean first gave her apologies because she has to leave the
meeting a little early today to get to an event at the Cleveland Clinic and she has to be
there by 5:00 PM.
Provost Mageean said that she wanted to thank the committees for working hard
on the Honors College program proposal and the way they are working through them
expeditiously, means that we can get that ad out for finding the Dean of the Honors
College this fall so that we can capture the best potential pool of candidates. She noted
that this is an important position and finding Deans is always important. This one has the
added characteristic of being also an Endowed Chair in the Humanities, which puts an
interesting perspective on it, and we do want to make sure we get the ideal candidate.
She gave her thanks to the committees for working hard on those issues.
Evaluation Forms – Provost Mageean commented that this is the kind of process
that makes all of us pull our hair out. In essence, the evaluation is going fine, the
electronic one, but because these things take a little time to get through Purchasing and
Legal and all of the other steps we have to go through, we had to make sure we had a
supply of the paper forms to move forward to the next semester. She noted that there are
some difficulties with previous providers with the new ones that exceeded the State limit
to let go for a known competitive bid and she tracked it down through denial at
Purchasing. It is the kind of thing that makes you pull your hair out but we are a State
entity and we do have to abide by State law so she thanks everybody who had patience
there.
Provost Mageean reported that she just came back yesterday evening as did a
couple of our other officers from the APLU meeting, that is the Association of Public and
Land-Grant Universities, which is the one with the big meeting that some of us try to get
to in the course of a year. She noted that it was very interesting to be down there with
your colleagues from all these other institutions. Some of them of course are the big
land-grants like Ohio State and younger institutions like ourselves although there is
always some slight variation in the fortunes of universities depending on what part of the
country you are located in and whether it has an oil budget or not, and obviously
depending on the orientation of the Governor in that State. Of course, after last night,
there may be some shift in that and their support for education is really quite insightful to
listen to just the home themes and issues and challenges that we are all trying to deal with
– it ranges from demographic enrollment trends effecting those of us in the Northeast and
Midwest, budgetary issues, the pretty much overwhelmingly drop in State support in
almost every State in the country and the pressure that puts on all of us sometimes with
enrollment and tuition and advancement and foundation money. Also, the challenges like
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competency learning, the caliber of our students coming in, and the increasing scrutiny of
the accountability and the demands for transparency on the accountability from all of the
entities from Federal, State, parents, and industry. She noted that it is a good time to
come together and listen and try to learn from one another in terms of what people are
doing but it is sometimes depressing given the common stories and the challenges you
hear from the public universities that they face. A lot of them have a lot to do or are just
finishing doing exactly what we are doing here with this kind of program prioritization
trying to reallocate the budget and kind of understanding that there will not be any new
allocation coming down the road any time soon. Different institutions go about things in
different ways but they are all trying to establish the same kind of thing.
Provost Mageean stated that as everyone noted at the last meeting, members had
just received from her the spreadsheets with the allocations of the one, two and three
designation on a company memo, and of necessity rather cryptic notes in the spreadsheets
because obviously there is not the room for extensive narrative there. The meetings they
have been holding and they will continue to hold are really the means of trying to flesh
out some of that stuff, it is just noted rather cryptically, and then a chance to ask them
questions to challenge or to interrogate whatever it is and to have a dialogue about what’s
going on. Provost Mageean reported that those have gone pretty well. They had a very
energetic one in Engineering. She noted that Nigamanth Sridhar turns up at every one of
the meetings and keeps asking her more and more questions but he represents faculty
well, not just the engineers. She said that they are good meetings. There is good
dialogue and they get good comments and sometimes you find, as they did in
Engineering, as she said to them, “You need to figure some of this out yourselves.” She
commented that Dr. Sridhar would say that that is some of the message that came out in
terms of prioritizing. We can’t save everything. We can’t invest in everything. They
need faculty to tell them where they think the prime programs would be and the ones that
are going to carry them forward into the future. And, that’s what a faculty rule is; it’s
doing that and then working with the administration to understand exactly where that has
to be. She noted that someone asked her at the meeting, “Well, the chairs said this is
really a sum zero game. And, I said, well yes, unfortunately it is. It is a zero sum game.
In zero sum games, there are winners and there are losers but what it means is if
something grows, something depletes and vis-a-versa. I wish it were otherwise, but that
is the kind of situation where it is.” Provost Mageean stated that they have the process
moving forward and they will continue to do that. She will set one more open university
meeting; they are still working on reconciling everybody’s schedule to make sure that
they can have that and if they can, they will put another one on. She noted that they are
getting a good feedback in terms of some people sending them some questions about the
data, corrections to the data, and they are open to those kinds of information that would
either further enlighten the situation or correct anything that is there. Provost Mageean
commented that everyone can imagine that with the amount of material and data that they
were dealing with and processing and trying to report there was always an opportunity for
error and they rely on faculty to correct that for them. She commented that this is all that
she is going to say about that process at the moment. It is going forward.
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Provost Mageean stated that clearly their ability to move forward and release the
positions will depend upon how quickly they get through this process, but she would like
to be in the position by the end of spring. As Dr. Sridhar said, we will by that stage, have
almost two years’ worth of positions. We should know by the spring as well the number
of additional retirements we have and most people are very good at letting them know
reasonably well in advance when they are retiring. Of course, next year is a kind of a
watershed year because some people have been here more than thirty years in the system
and literally they are leaving money on the table or almost paying us for them to work.
She added that it’s a make or break year for many and most people are being very good.
We did have a couple of people last year that told us one or two weeks before the
semester they weren’t coming back which kind of puts you in the lurch. But other than
that, most people are very good in letting them know. She noted that when they have
those numbers, they should be in a bumper crop with these positions. She added that they
have authorized some tenure and tenure-track searches where clearly accrediting
requirements were such that they needed to have a core number of people… although
some departments could not move. But, they have been trying to move with all in
responding to requests for visiting and temporary positions so that they can make sure
that everything is covered in the classroom and in the labs. They will continue to move
forward on that and if they can get all of their work done by the spring, they will be
releasing those positions. They are untouched, they are sacrosanct, and no one is digging
into them for anything else. She said that she will not dig into them for administrative
positions whereas they are faculty lines and that is it.
Provost Mageean commented that the harder ones, this came up in some of the
discussions, are things like administrative positions be they budget people right through
to course support people, and her budget doesn’t cover that. She noted that the College
of Engineering, for instance, has requested, as you might expect the College of
Engineering is growing, administrative positions, and there is no budget for that. For
that, they have to go in as tenure track. It is a supplementary request to the central budget
but she did not think it appropriate to dig into the faculty lines to try and meet those kinds
of requests. She added that somehow she can figure that out somewhere.
Provost Mageean stated that one thing they may want to look at is doing what we
do with the faculty lines which is putting things back centrally. But universities like
many institutions, are subject to what might be called legacy effects. So department X,
that one maybe is small and one that is rather larger with excellent staff may not be where
the need is anymore and which is growing like crazy. It doesn’t have that kind of support
and really in those situations you need to be able to move things around. It is not a
question of just maintaining the status quo. So, whether we do it just at the college level
or centrally, that’s something we need to address but we need to be able to move those
positions around too in order to meet the needs of a growing department and recognize
that in some cases, they may be normal occasions in some cases, and there are no
conversations about that, but it is sometimes worth talking about and they are talking to
deans, chairs and others about that situation.
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Provost Mageean brought up Title IX Training. She stated that faculty will be
moving through the Title IX training. She noted that interestingly it was one of the big
issues that came up at the APLU conference besides major controversies and issues
around sports in North Carolina and a few other places. But, Title IX and the way in
which it is being responded to, we are really out in front of things here. She said she
wanted to thank everybody who took the time to do the training. She noted that it is in
everyone’s interest and the institution’s interest and the interest of the people who fall
back into these situations.
Provost Mageean commented that Dr. Sridhar pointed out something very, very
appropriately and she tries to do it verbally when she is meeting with departments or
colleges as contextualizing of all of this, and she tries from time to time to do it here at
Senate but talking about this prioritization relates to strategic planning or the stated
priorities of the university. She stated that there is a document that says, “Strategic
Planning, Priorities for 2012 – 2015” and one of those says very clearly, there are a
number of key areas. It says, “Pursue initiatives of signature programs.” She noted that
it recognizes there such things as our programs that speak to the critical university’s
mission; it talks about partnerships in key academic areas; it recognizes our growth,
potential and need to grow in areas of health sciences and engineering and some of those
other areas where there is a strong external demand say from business, industry or
government. But, there is also mention that they are rolled in the creative economy such
as enhancing the Playhouse Square Partnership and the Fine Arts Campus, etc. She
stated that those are the kinds of things that are in those strategic directions that we do see
reflected in the prioritization and so they did take their leave from that amongst other
things. She said that though strategic planning was a process of the catalog and faculty
involvement in it, these were the conclusions that they set and they did take their leave
and that is part of the context in which the prioritization was done. She noted that Dr.
Sridhar had made a good point and we need to keep emphasizing that this is not a U turn
or a 90 degree turn from anything that was done before; it is actually consistent with
those strategic planning priorities that were stated for 2012 and 2015.
Senator Bill Bowen commented that that raises a question in his mind. He asked,
“How will the host prioritized university here be in line with the notion that this is a
comprehensive university?”
Provost Mageean replied, “That is a good challenge, isn’t it? The question is how
comprehensive. We are not Ohio State, right? Obviously we don’t have things like a
land-grant admission or co-op extension and all of those things, but we might have a
strong emphasis on engagement and outreach and how that manifests itself, but that is
one of the things we grappled with. By the smaller entities and APLUs, what can we
continue to offer? When you think of it, if you take the big guys out like Ohio State, by
any particular admission is a land-grant university, within one hundred miles of here
you’ve got Akron, you’ve got Youngstown, you’ve got us here and Kent State – can all
of them, in a declining population within a one hundred mile radius with one another,
continue to be exactly the same kind of comprehensive university competing?” She
noted that those are the questions we have to ask ourselves when that’s said. That’s a real
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academic question but what is core to any education. What you are trying to do even as
you grow particular signature programs, clearly you have ensured that the GenEd feeders
into those programs and other things are complete. That’s why we revisit GenEd
requirements and the like consistently. But you get down to the questions like, “How
many foreign languages can you offer? How many of this can you offer and what can we
afford to do?”
Senator Robert Krebs remarked that there is something we have that a lot of those
don’t have and that is a very strong community college. He was wondering if anyone has
projected what the effects are with last night’s vote now that Tri-C is going to get a big
impact; they are not in the zero sum game; they took a gamble to go for more than
replacement and actually get an increase and were given it and that is a major feeder
program to us. He asked if anyone has started an advanced projector or is it too soon to
start looking at that after the election.
Provost Mageean replied that even before last night, this is an older established
institution; a vastly bigger institution, and a vastly better resourced institution than we are
– everything from their marketing budget down to their people; it just is. So, clearly it is
interesting, when she goes to the Provosts’ meetings and there are branch campuses –
nobody, but us, has a big institution that’s better resourced three blocks away. She stated
that this is the big sister or brother sitting there and you can’t go to war with them, which
would be silly and futile; you need to figure out what is the right relationship with them.
There are clearly areas – we just dealt with one of them a week ago where it is to our
great advantage because it can feed into programs very well. We graduate more of our
students than we take in, in freshmen, so we rely very heavily on transfers. A good
chunk of those transfers come from Tri-C and Loraine and some others; we pick from
Baldwin Wallace and other places. Clearly we do everything we can with the TAGS,
with the transfers, with advising but there are some programs that naturally feed one or
the other. We just signed a big agreement that some people saw, the RN to BSN that
President Berkman had mentioned. There are clearly some other areas in the Health
Sciences and in other areas where there is a natural connection and where we can smooth
that path and ensure that we have a continued pipeline from those. Now, interestingly,
most community college enrollments went down. She commented that she is trying to
recall if Tri-C’s enrollment went down. A lot of times, when they go by the populace
that they serve, they were particularly hard hit. Provost Mageean reported that President
Johnson is very enthusiastic to work with CSU to do that so the RN to BSN was like the
poster child of how we might be able to do that and she thinks we actually are currently
exploring that one area where we would like to be more of a PA program. She noted that
a lot of those are in Health Sciences, the big ones in Health Sciences, and if we can do
that in some other areas, are key ends. She commented that if faculty have suggestions
and talk to their colleagues that know whether there is a potential for growth, we should
hear from them. She added that Dr. Krebs’ question was a good question.
Senator Jeff Karem said he had a question that dovetails with various strategic
plans and other matters. It is maybe a subject for another day and may require help from
the Vice Provost of NEOMED but what’s happening with NEOMED? We received a
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report when we heard about this two years ago. He said that we see the building going
up, we hear about prioritization and strategic developments, but he hasn’t heard anything
about what’s with our NEOMED partnership.
Provost Mageean replied that it sounds to her like it’s time for a pretty in depth
presentation to Faculty Senate on just that. We obviously see the building that is going
up so the goal is by the time it opens in June 2015, she is looking at Dr. Bond because she
knows more than almost everybody else about it and Dean Vida Lock isn’t here, that
building will be open for business. Provost Mageean reported that we are already feeding
students into the MD program and we are into our third class of students.
Senator Joan Niederriter reported that they have around twenty students this year;
last year they had fifteen students. The goal for next year is thirty students.
Provost Mageean commented that they are moving along. Some are Health
Sciences and some are Nursing. Nursing isn’t moving over there but they will be
working over there, and there will be a move of some people in Health Sciences. The
whole goal is, in addition to producing these primary care physicians who will be
specifically staying and serving urban areas like Cleveland, we will have a more diverse
intake than most medical schools. We are looking at promoting the goal of
interdisciplinary team training and this is the way a lot of health care is going. You just
don’t have your doctorate to be a physician’s assistant. You have the nurses, you have
the occupational therapists, whatever combination of people is needed, but you need to
train them to work. Dr. Vida Lock, Dean of Nursing, has been organizing our third
interdisciplinary training and there will be an announcement this week of another one.
So, they will be over there. Some state-of-the-art simulation has been installed over there
that will help our Nursing faculty and students in addition to the medical students. We
will be not just over the big goal of producing urban serving MDs, but also enhancing
this new approach to health training and health provision, which is interdisciplinary and
more team-based. But, Dr. Karem is absolutely right; it probably is time for a more in
depth presentation. She commented that she should ask Dr. Sonja Harris-Haywood,
Assoc. Vice Provost for Health Affairs, NEOMED-CSU, who would be the person that
has it down to her fingertips and does a very good presentation. She added that maybe it
would be a good thing to have her give a presentation at Senate.
Senator Andrew Gross stated that linking what Provost Mageean had said last
time and today, he gets the distinct impression that prioritization, which is a terrible
word, is applicable to the colleges but not when it comes to the administration. Since the
administration is over all, there are no leading in or budget cuts, etc. So, it seems to him
that it’s at the faculty end when talking about prioritization. Along those lines, he would
suggest that the administration, when announcing a new administrative appointment,
rather than the person’s background, he would be interested to know whether this person
is replacing one or if it is a new position.
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Provost Mageean responded that she thinks she knows exactly whom Dr. Gross is
talking about. She stated that Mr. Tim Martin is the new Director of Budgets in the
Provost’s Office.
Dr. Gross remarked that he is talking in general.
Provost Mageean said that Mr. Tim Martin replaces Ms. Teri Kocevar who moved
over to replace some other person so that is no addition. She noted that if she didn’t have
somebody doing the budget in that area, the colleges would get no budget, which is
probably not a good thing for anybody. So, she prioritized filling that position and, very
nicely due to the kindness of Dr. Zachariah, we had Ms. Michele Szantay from the
College of Education doing double duty and helping us while Teri went over and dealt
with the things she had to deal with in Sponsored Programs which most researchers
would understand is a very, very wise move. Provost Mageean stated that she would be
happy to do that. Anything in her area as being a simple replacement, she would be
happy to itemize them for Dr. Gross. But, Dr. Gross raised a question which is raised in
every department meeting and an absolutely legitimate question, “What is everybody else
doing?” Provost Mageean stated that when the team, sometime back when they started
this process, looked at what is said that you should do, these things should go lock step,
administrative and academic prioritization can be done. She added that some universities
have done it very successfully. We have moved faster but she believes that Dr. Sridhar
has an invitation to the Vice President for Business Affairs and Finance, Stephanie
McHenry, to talk about some of the things going on in that area and hopefully she can
provide Senate with some answers.
Dr. Sridhar noted that he had tried to get Vice President McHenry to attend
Steering two weeks ago but she had a scheduling conflict. She will attend Steering and
Senate next time.
Provost Mageean reported that in the areas like Student Affairs, Vice President
Boyd Yarbrough is doing exactly that in her area in response to her and Dr. Carmen
Brown has been doing that in Enrollment Services but clearly this is something that needs
to be provided, the kind of information these people provide to all.
VI.
Report of the Student Government Association (Report No. 12, 2014-2015)
Ms. Allie Dumski, President of the Student Government Association, reported
that over the last couple of weeks, SGA has been working on various projects ranging
from textbooks to financial aid research. She commented that she would talk to Senate
about textbooks at the next meeting.
Ms. Dumski stated that today she will talk about success rates. She reported that
SGA met with the Provost last week and discussed this issue and now they are interested
in hearing from members of Faculty Senate. She noted that the university is very
concerned with getting students in, educating them, and then graduating students. But,
what we don’t talk about as often is, what happens after we graduate? How long does it
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take somebody to get a job with his or her degree from Cleveland State? Is their job
related to their degree? What do research students graduate with? What are their starting
salaries? Does their GAP matter when they got their job? Ms. Dumski noted that these
are just some of the questions they plan to ask graduates within the last five years in a
survey that was sent out with the help of the Alumni Association. She stated that they
realize that different departments may be tracking this information with their own
methods and systems and so SGA would love to hear what faculty have and if faculty
have any information that can be shared with SGA about their programs and graduates.
She said that SGA believes that this will definitely benefit current students and they
would find this information helpful when choosing a major or considering switching
majors. SGA plans to compile all of this research and publicize it for students so that
they can pick it up in a tangible form and see what exactly is happening with students and
with CSU graduates.
In closing, Ms. Dumski stated that SGA will be meeting this Friday, December 7,
2014 at 3:30 PM in the Student Center Ballroom. She will be giving a “State of the SGA
Update” and Senators will also be presenting some of their projects that they have been
working on. If faculty are unable to make it, she noted that they started doing fireside
chats that will be posted on SGA’s YouTube channel and that, again, is another version
of SGA’s meeting with a little update. She noted that there is also an SGA update in the
Cauldron this week if anyone wants to pick one up and check it out.
Ms. Dumski said that on a side note, text book orders were due on the 31st so if
faculty and their colleagues have not submitted orders for the spring, please do so as soon
as possible; SGA would greatly appreciate it.
Finally, Ms. Dumski thanked Faculty Senate for their time.
VII.
University Curriculum Committee
Dr. Fred Smith, chair of the University Curriculum Committee, reported that UCC
has three proposals for Faculty Senate vote that are described in the memo that was
included in the Senate meeting packet. Professor Smith noted that two of them involve
changes to graduate programs in the Department of Teacher Education resulting form
conversion of courses from four to three credits: proposed changes to the Early
Childhood Graduate Degree and proposed changes to the Special Education Graduate
Degree. The third one is the proposed Dormancy of the School of Nursing Licensure
program. He noted that if there are questions, he might be able to answer them.
A. Proposed changes to the Early Childhood Graduate Degree (Report No.
13, 2014-2015)
B. Proposed Changes to Special Education Graduate Degree (Report No.
14, 2014-2015)
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C. Proposed Dormancy of School Nursing Licensure Program (Report No.
15, 2014-2015)
Senator Krebs inquired, “The way these program proposals were described, is
there an overall reduction in degree hours for these programs?”
Dr. Smith replied that for the two programs in Early Childhood Education, and
the three tracks of programs for the master’s degrees in the Special Education Graduate
degree, there is a reduction in the degree hours by the number of courses that were
converted from four to three credits. But, they still have a sufficient number of credits to
qualify for master’s degrees.
Senator William Bowen stated that he assumed that Graduate Council approved
these proposals.
Dr. Smith replied that he assumed so; in fact he said he knows so. He added that
the UCC doesn’t approve things unless the people who have to approve them first have
approved them.
Dr. Bowen commented that that is the way we have always done it in the past. He
is just trying to make sure that we are going to continue like that.
Dr. Smith responded that UCC is continuing that system.
Senate President Sridhar asked if there were any further questions on the three
proposals. There being no further questions or discussion, Dr. Sridhar asked for a vote on
the three proposals of the University Curriculum Committee.
The Proposed changes to the Early Childhood Graduate Degree program (Report
No. 13) were approved unanimously by voice vote.
The Proposed changes to the Special Education Graduate Degree program (Report
No. 14) were approved unanimously by voice vote.
The Proposed Dormancy of the School Nurse Licensure Program (Report No. 15)
was approved unanimously by voice vote.
D. For Informational Purposes Only (Report No. 16, 2014-2015)
Approved Corrected Degree Maps for Middle Childhood
Faculty Senate received the “For Informational Purposes Only” items without any
discussion.
Professor Smith reported that there have been some questions about when the
UCC meets and what it does at those meetings so he just wanted to explain one feature of
the UCC’s meetings this fall. The UCC group was unable, due to an incomplete roster, to
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establish a schedule of meetings prior to the beginning of the term. So, the UCC then
scheduled, not on an ad hoc basis, but there is not a set schedule. However, he next
meeting of the UCC is scheduled and there will probably be at least two more meetings
after that before the end of the term. The UCC’s agenda is determined mainly by what
UCC received through the on-line Curriculum Approval System. Dr. Smith noted that a
few items come to UCC not through that system like the proposal for the Honors College.
But, for the most part, UCC reviews things that are submitted through this on-line
system. They are reviewed in the order in which they are submitted unless something is
submitted that is so confusing to him when he screens it that he has to ask questions
about it. He remarked, that’s the way the UCC works right now. He noted that he will
try for the spring to have a set schedule. If someone wants to know when a UCC meeting
is scheduled, he knows when the meetings are and is happy to answer questions about
when they are. He noted that Violet also knows when UCC meetings are because she
reserves the meeting locations.
Dr. Sridhar stated that he had one more thing along those lines: that on-line
Curriculum Approval System is accessible to everybody. He noted that anyone of us can
log in and look at the proposals. He actually encourages everybody before the Faculty
Senate meeting to go to that system and review the detailed proposals. He added that the
UCC does provide Senate with a memo that summarizes the proposed changes and what
is being asked for. Oftentimes, these details are what could cause questions to arise. He
asked Senators to please review these proposals. Obviously, everyone has heard him say
this last year when we were rushing through all of the 4 to 3 conversion proposals, that
we should all take some time and read those proposals. He said that he has been doing
that as early as last year, so members can actually get through these things in a reasonable
amount of time. Dr. Sridhar asked Senators to go to the on-line Curriculum Approval
System and look at these curricular proposals before Faculty Senate meetings.
VIII. University Faculty Affairs Committee (Report No. 17, 2014-2015)
Dr. Jeff Karem, chair of the University Faculty Affairs Committee, stated that
most of his points of information have already been covered and he will do it very briefly
so that we can move forward on the Agenda.
One, do your Title IX training, please.
Two, review the Copyright Policy and get your feedback to the Office of
Compliance by November 14, 2014. Dr. Karm stated that if anyone has questions about
that policy, feel free to email them to him. He added that faculty in the English
Department are very familiar with copyrighted materials since every time they publish
anything, they have to deal with the Copyright Policies. He said that he can tell everyone
that the policy really reflects standard practice. It does have important implications if
you are trying to get free materials to your students however. He stated that people
should read the policy and be careful and, in an interesting way with textbooks, you don’t
stumble into some shaky copyrights. He noted that if anyone has questions, he will talk
more about that.
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Three, the pilot of the on-line Blue Student Evaluation System is moving forward.
He stated that if anyone volunteered for that, thank you. People should have received an
email about that last week. He noted that the faculty is being asked to administer those
during the twelfth week of classes. Within that email, there was a statement for faculty to
read to their students so that they understand what these are for. UFAC is recommending
as best practice for those in the new pilot, that faculty devote some time in class for
students to complete it. The window for completion will remain open for the rest of the
semester though. Obviously, faculty should not be in the room while the students are
completing it and UFAC does recommend that it is best to do it at the beginning of class
because at the end, it sometimes is tempting to just head out of there. Again, if anyone
has any questions, direct them to himself or to Vice Provost Teresa LaGrange. Dr.
Karem stated that faculty should not use the old forms for evaluations. The new forms
should be in soon. Dr. Karem noted that just for the record, UFAC completed their
business on this issue in May and Testing Services and Institutional Research initiated
purchase orders within weeks of UFAC approving them so the snafu has occurred, as the
Provost said, because of issues with legal matters and things of that nature. Everyone
acted with due diligence but, problems are bound to arise.
Dr. Karem reported that UFAC is continuing to discuss future improvements to
the procedures for the Student Evaluation System and are working with their Data
Calculations Subcommittee. It is his hope that by the next Senate meeting, they will have
at least some initial proposals about reporting back that data from the new Student
Evaluation Form.
Senator Norbert Delatte stated that he got one of these emails that his students,
during week twelve, will be getting some kind of an email that they will be doing these
evaluations. He inquired, “What date will the students get the email?” He noted that he
asked his students and they said they hadn’t heard anything yet. He asked, “Are they
going to be informed and he is not going to be told when they have the evaluation and it
is over or how is that going to work?”
Dr. Karem responded that his understanding, and he doesn’t know if somebody
from IS&T or if Vice Provost Teresa LaGrange is present today to comment, but he
believes that on Monday, faculty should be getting notification. They plan the release to
be the twelfth week of class during the normal administration period.
Dr. Delatte inquired if only the students will get the notification. He commented
that moving parts break down sometime. Dr. Karem replied that that has never happened
here before.
Senator Jennifer Visocky-O’Grady stated that her department is one of the trial
departments for the on-line student evaluations and Vice Provost Teresa LaGrange has
been very helpful but, she has noticed because she has asked her a bunch of questions
about it yesterday, that some students will be receiving a prompt email which they will
have to save and respond to. If they don’t respond, they will keep getting emailed until
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they complete an evaluation, which is good. But, there is no way to stand at the front of
the class and give them like a URL and say, “go to this to enter your information for our
class” and that seems to her, knowing how her students respond to emails she sends to
them, to be a better way to kind of stand at the front of the class and collectively say,
“Hey, go to this now and respond on your device” because you can all get in with your
ID number and that’s how it will work. She noted that Vice Provost LaGrange explained
to her that that is going to happen in the future, but it’s not part of the pilot. She is
concerned that the pilot isn’t a true pilot if it is not really how the system will work. She
is a little bit worried that we are going to have trouble getting everyone to respond.
Dr. Karem stated that maybe he should have titled this, “UFAC Committee chair
receives help from points of information from Senate.” He noted that his assumption was
that we could do precisely what Dr. Visocky-O’Grady was saying. “Blue” was built
precisely to go in, open it up, and show the students a URL or a link through Campus Net
or some other gateway event. He said that he will follow up with Mr. Peter Phillips,
Director of Applications and Integrations in IS&T. He added that if that is how the
system is working, that’s going to change the results of the pilot dramatically.
Professor Visocky-O’Grady agreed with Dr. Karem.
IX.
Report from Student Success Committee (Report No. 18, 2014-2015)
Dr. Barbara Margolius, chair, Student Success Committee, thanked everyone for
the opportunity to talk to Senate today. She reported that the Student Success Committee
is looking more broadly at promoting success so that undergraduate students that come to
Cleveland State and hopefully return until they get degrees and that is our overall goal.
Today, she is just talking about financial aid. She noted that she would start off giving
Senators some background on what financial aid is and what some of the basic terms are
and then will conclude with telling Senators some of the things faculty members can do
to help students.
Dr. Margolius referred everyone to the first slide of her PowerPoint presentation.
This slide shows a screen shot of a site linked to the White House website. Students
filing the federal application, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) have
a link to this site. Our graduation rate as of the date when it was given to the site was
33.6%. So, when she started, we were at 26% and the 36% is a bigger number than 26;
she is a mathematician, and she can tell everyone that is true, but we have a long way to
go. We have made progress, but we have a long way to go. She noted that a more
current figure would be around 38.5% so next year it might say that. Everyone could go
to the web site that is readable even though the screen shots may not be and you can view
what information is available to our statements about how we are doing. We need to do
better even if we didn’t care about anybody who is here, we need to do better so we can
stay in business and people keep coming.
Dr. Margolius asked, “What is financial aid?” She noted that financial aid is a
collection of grants, scholarships, work-study and loans that is provided to students so
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their families can help them pay for their college education. The difference between a
grant and a scholarship is that a grant is generally need-based and a scholarship generally
has some non-need criteria, but you don’t have to pay either one back. “So, where does
financial aid come from?” Dr. Margolius stated that the largest source is from the federal
government; state governments give some too – Ohio is particularly cheap. There are also
college and university sources and private organizations. Dr. Margolius stated that this is
the definition of the basic types of financial aid. A student will receive an award letter
from the university and this sometimes causes confusion particularly for a first generation
college student. It will have their work-study allocation on there but they don’t just get it.
They have to work and it doesn’t go toward tuition while they work it off or something.
And loans, of course, you have to pay back but this all comes on an award letter.
Dr. Margolius referred to the next graph that was taken from the College Board
and it’s a breakdown federally of what types of financial aid there are out there and how
much of each type. She referred to the pie chart on the next slide and they are not
directly comparable to each other because for example, the 9% federal education tax
credits and deductions portion of this one is $16.9 billion. We really have no information
and no idea of how many of the students’ parents and families are able to take advantage
of that. Overall, loans make up a bigger portion of how our students finance their
education and that can be seen on the chart – the $120 million figure that makes up 70%
of the grant – that’s federal loans that students take out to pay for their Cleveland State
education. The next biggest slice at 13% is federal grants and for our students that is
almost entirely Pell Grants. Pell Grants are need-based grants that this year top out at
$5,730. She noted that she will have a little bit more to say about that in a minute. She
commented, “Don’t think that because a student is getting $5,000 that they are in the
gravy.”
What’s the cost of attendance? Dr. Margolius stated that this is a federally
defined term and what it means is what it costs to go here for one year so, in addition to
paying tuition and fees, students have to eat, students have to have a place to live, they
have to pay for transportation, so the cost of attendance includes all of that and there is a
detailed chart on the next slide. The green on the pie chart is 38% and that’s what
students pay us for tuition and fees. The larger piece is for their room and board and then
the tiny slice there is their loan fees and the rest goes for transportation and miscellaneous
costs. Dr. Margolius asked, “How do we know what the cost of attendance is?” She
noted that students are surveyed every two years and we ask them.
Expected Family Contribution. Dr. Margolius stated that this is computed based
on the FAFSA form, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form that any student
in the financial aid system will complete. It is how much money their family is expected
to be able to contribute to their education.
Financial Need. Dr. Margolius said that the financial aid need of the student
defines the difference between what it cost to come here, including room and board and
all that other good stuff, and what their family is expected to pay. The difference
between those two is how much money they need.
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Dr. Margolius next referred to a breakdown of much unmet need our students
have. The biggest bar there is “Did not File” so they are not in the financial aid system.
It is not correct to assume that they don’t need money. One might not be in the financial
aid system because they have accrued more than 150% of the credit hours that they need
or they may have SAP, Standards for Academic Progress, and they may not be eligible
for financial aid. So, there are other reasons then that you are plenty well off and don’t
need it; that you might not be in the financial aid system.
Dr. Margolius noted that those who did not file are the students who still need
$5,000 to $10,000 and this is after loans. This doesn’t mean that they have a grant and
then the balance is this unmet need. This is their unmet need after their Work Study,
after their loans, after their Gants and after their scholarships. This is the gap that they
have to pay by taking additional loans or by working.
Dr. Margolius referred to the next graph that is intended to show that it actually
matters how much money a student needs and how well they do. It is a bar chart showing
students who did not either come back for the next year or graduate. They are doing okay
if they graduate and they are doing okay if they came back. So the more money a student
needs, the more likely they are to not come back. So, it’s a pretty linear relationship; the
worse off you are, the harder it is to return to the university.
Professor Margolius commented, “Remember we defined the expected family
contribution a few slides back, this is how Cleveland State University undergraduates
break down in terms of expected family contribution.” So, the first bar is zero; they have
no money that their family is expected to be able to contribute to their education. No
money that their family is expected to be able to contribute to their education. No money
that their family is expected to be able to contribute their housing. No money that their
family is expected to be able to contribute to their fees or transportation. One in four
Cleveland State University undergraduate students is in that mode. Another 15% or so
have less than $5,000 that their family can be expected to contribute. So, “What does
that mean?” Dr. Margolius stated that in order to qualify for an automatic zero in
expected family contribution, your family income is less than $24,000 a year and your
family qualified during the last year for either SSI, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program) that you may have heard of that is food stamps but the current name
is SNAP, the Free and Reduced Lunch Program, the Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families which in Ohio is called Ohio Works First, for the Women, Infants, and Children
Program (WIC). Dr. Margolius stated, so maybe you are thinking, “Well, okay, the
student was eating last year, right? Well, they are not in high school anymore – they
don’t get the free and reduced lunch anymore. So one in four students is zero EFC.
Dr. Margolius went back to some definitions. She noted that a lot of our students
get the Pell Grant so that maxes out at $5,730 but remember that the cost of the
attendance here for a student who lives at home is $20,000 so they’ve got $5,000 towards
the $20,000 they need if they are in the high end group. The State of Ohio gives $1,000
and of course you would rather have it than not but it doesn’t go very far.
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Standards for Academic Progress: Dr. Margolius reported that there is a really
nice web site that Financial Aid has put up at: http://www.csuohio.edu/financialaid/standards-academic-progress. So students who failed to achieve SAP for two
semesters in a row are not eligible to receive financial aid. To maintain SAP, a student
has to complete at least two-thirds of the courses that they attempt as of the drop date.
She noted that you are not doing a student a favor if they’ve got a chance to complete a
course by telling them to withdraw. You need to figure that out pretty early in the term
because they may lose their standing and their eligibility for Financial Aid if they don’t
make it through two-thirds of their courses. Students also can’t take more than 150% of
the credit hours required for a degree so now typically that would be 108 credit hours for
an undergraduate at Cleveland State and if they take more than that, they are not going to
get any Financial Aid for it. And, they have to maintain at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA.
Dr. Margolius stated that there is additional information at the web site that she
referenced and there is an appeals process, but basically, if they fail SAP two semesters
in a row, they are done – no more Financial Aid.
Professor Margolius noted that there are some things that we can do to mitigate
this stuff and Ms. Allie Dumski and others have talked very ably about what can be done
in terms of textbooks. If you are a big department that has a lot of students, you actually
have leverage with the publishers and you can try to negotiate a lower price for your
students. She reported that she was talking with the SGA folks before this Meeting and
Emily pointed out that one cost factor is the on-line homework. If you are requiring online homework, try and get it from the publisher then at least the students can use it for
more than one semester. She added that there are a lot of different things to think about.
Another thing that can be done, she is a faculty member and she knows that this is
incredibly annoying, but take attendance. She asked, “Why does that matter?” She
stated that that matters because if a student unofficially withdraws, which means that they
didn’t complete any of their courses successfully in the semester, then the federal
government goes after the university and the university goes after the student for the
money. So, if you can say that a student earned that “F”, right, they were there 60% of
the way through the semester, then they get to keep their aid. It is a double edged sword,
of course, because if they didn’t make any progress, that’s not a good thing either; that
goes adversely into SAP but at least we won’t be gunning them for the money that the
federal government guns us for. The students have to pay it back and the government
doesn’t want to mess with going to the students directly so that means the university has
to pay it back so everybody is worse off, if a student who truly was here most of the
semester is reported as though they weren’t here. So by faculty’s efforts last fall by
keeping track of attendance, the university saved itself and the students $400,000 just for
that one semester over the procedure that we were previously following. So, even though
it is annoying, take attendance. You don’t have to do it every class every day to help us
out with this, but if faculty know whether they were there more than 60% of the way
through the semester, that’s a help and also for the students who show up as well so it’s a
good thing.
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Turning your grades in on time. Dr. Margolius asked, “Why does that matter?”
She said because the university does a report on Standards for Academic Progress and if
your grades aren’t in, it looks like the student didn’t complete the course and they don’t
rerun it later on. So, it’s mixed and if the student appeals, they may pick it up but they
might not pick it up so turn in your grades on time.
Discourage withdrawers. Professor Margolius stated that students who withdraw
from class are at a disadvantage for the Standards for Academic Progress. She noted that
not every one of these applies to every faculty member, but if you have any role in the
scheduling process, don’t schedule required courses on top of each other. Our students
can’t afford to be here an extra semester because we’ve gummed up the schedule. She
went on to say, be attentive to that. Dr. Margolius commented that the committee is
working with SGA to produce a survey that gives us better information on just what
works and what doesn’t so that we can tailor our programs more effectively to the
students we have. She stated that once that comes out, faculty should please encourage
their students to participate in that survey and that’s going be geared to sophomores and
juniors. She noted that faculty may not have a role in the internship process, but if you
do, it’s great to say, one, we don’t want to be a technical academy where we just train
students for work and that’s a fine ideal but they actually need to be able to pay their bills
and it’s better to pay your bills with a position that you are learning something about and
it’s related to the field that you want to go into. So, if faculty has the ability to help with
the internships, then do that.
Advancement. If you do chose to donate to the university, consider your gift for
unrestricted scholarships. She noted that she has more details on the other slides but she
is not going to read them. She said at this point, she would respond to questions.
Senator Allyson Robichaud said that when she has students that are surely going
to fail, she encourages them to withdraw. She noted that now she is being told that she
should encourage students to come to class, not do the work, and still give them an “F”.
She stated that she is not really clear.
Dr. Margolius responded that this is a really hard issue if withdrawing students
from their class is going to drop them below the number of credit hours. Well it doesn’t
matter in terms of SAP because if you get an “F” or a “W”, that turns out the same. If the
student unofficially withdraws though, by withdrawing from their course, and that’s like
the last one and they are gone from the university and it is before the 60% mark, then
they have to pay half of the tuition back. So, Dr. Robichaud may want to advise her
students to go to the Campus 411 so that they understand the implications of the
withdrawal if faculty members don’t know all of the ins and outs. As to the “S” and “W”
in terms of SAP, they are the same. “F” and “W” are not the same in terms of having
them chase after you for the money. But, ideally, and she knows that this is often not
knowable, but ideally, you want to make sure that the student is in the right place before
that two week deadline so that they can get out of your course and it is not considered in
the denominator or fraction that computes the two-thirds.
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Professor Robichaud asked if Dr. Margolius means the first two weeks of classes.
Dr. Margolius replied, “Yes.” Dr. Robichaud noted that that is virtually impossible. She
stated that it doesn’t feel right to say to them, “Just hang out or don’t come or show up
now and again even though you are not passing this class and I have to give you an “F”.”
Dr. Margolius stated that if the students have a chance if they just change their
behavior to pass, then we want them to stay in there. We absolutely do not want them to
constructively withdraw from the university because that is just bad for everybody.
Chances are, though, the sort of student that Dr. Robichaud is describing, you are not
going to have him out of everything. So this is a student who successfully completes
nothing that the Feds go after.
Professor Robichaud commented that this is the case of a student she recently
strongly recommended that he withdraw and he did so she doesn’t know where he will
fall out – she has no idea. Dr. Robichaud wondered if it is okay to say, “Oh, what is your
financial aid like? Can you get money from the Feds in which case…”
Dr. Margolius responded that faculty don’t want to do that but you may want to
tell the student, “I am not in a position to know your financial aid status so check it out –
go to 411.” Dr. Margolius noted that hopefully Professor Robichaud is not going to be
the last straw for a whole bunch of students.
Professor Jordan Yin reported that he has peer discussions just because of
Cleveland State being who we are. The national media sort of picks up on student aid for
the traditional 18 to 24 year old cohort, which is not really us. We are not at fault for
students who use their checks to buy baby formula. He asked, “What are some of the
things that come into play with the adult learner populations and how does that intersect
with us?”
Dr. Margolius replied that the committee had some ideas about what the students
look like who come here and they actually have a lot of data that we can look at but there
are also things that we don’t know and that is part of the purpose of the survey they are
doing with SGA. They are going to ask the students how many hours they work, and do
you support other family members and various questions along those lines to try to get a
better understanding. Hopefully, if we understand the student body better, we can help
them.
Vice Provost Peter Meiksins said, in response to Professor Yin’s point, you need
to remember that the completion rate that keeps getting quoted, the 38% or whatever it is
graduation rate for the cohort… it is the freshmen who are not by and large the traditional
college age students. The students Dr. Margolius is referring to are by and large transfer
students and their completion rates almost double the completion rate of our freshmen.
The problem is actually centered primarily with the 17 to 21 year olds although there is a
secondary problem with the older students some of whom turn away. But, many of them
complete and the numbers say that.
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Dr. Meiksins stated that they all owe money but in terms of losing students and in
terms of students drifting away from the university, it’s the freshmen in this who are the
bigger problem. He noted that the transfer students actually by and large do better.
Senator Norbert Delatte commented that this is more of an observation but
unfortunately, it is a problem that he hasn’t seen recently. It came up a couple of years
ago. Dr. Margolius had mentioned internships. He noted that if you have somebody who
is taking a one credit co-op, a lot of times that student could conceivably fall through the
cracks in terms of getting a grade assigned. The student has to get the work in and the
instructor has to remember the co-op student floating around out there. There was a case
where they had students not make progress due to having an incomplete on that one
credit co-op that they kind of slid under the radar so that’s kind of something he is not
sure how we keep track of because it tends to get lost if we are not being careful with it.
But, two-thirds of one rounds to one he guesses.
Dr. Margolius stated that she believes they do have an appeals process. She
supposes that the student could say that the professor is an idiot and that… Professor
Delatte remarked that sometimes it is the student’s fault if they have to give a report. He
noted that in this case, all successfully appealed but these were, in some cases, three, four
or five students all of a sudden getting a bonus that your financial aid is going to be cut
off because you are not making satisfactory progress and this is disconcerting.
Dr. Fred Smith noted that he was astonished to learn this summer that if people
get incompletes or even a complete course at some point with a passing grade, if you
have an incomplete on the day the grades are due, it counts negatively towards SAP.
Dr. Margolius stated that Registrar Janet Stimple is present and she can address
Dr. Smith’s question better.
Ms. Janet Stimple noted that after grades are due it runs concurrent on that
calculation.
Dr. Smith commented that the point is if he understands correctly, the purposes of
SAP, if you get an incomplete, it’s like failing the course. Dr. Smith remarked that he
was stunned to learn that, and he thinks it was something that the typical faculty member
doesn’t understand and he doesn’t know if the typical student understands.
Dr. Sridhar commented, “The understanding presented earlier is not right, right?”
He noted that as Janet Stimple just explained, if the student needs a course in the fall, it’s
incomplete, in the spring, the student may not satisfy SAP but then the next fall the
student does, so the student is eligible for the fall semester, right?
Dr. Meiksins stated that one of the reasons why faculty should know that, and he
knows of at least one faculty member on campus who fairly routinely gives students an
incomplete at the end of the semester is so that they can take an exam over and earn a
better grade. So, they are punishing them in one sense because the students fail SAP
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because they got an “I” and they are rewarded in another sense by getting the opportunity
to improve their grade. But, that practice is probably not wise because it endangers a
student’s financial position.
Provost Mageean stated that it is also a reason why grades need to be put in at the
end of the semester. There are some people who have a habit of putting incompletes in
and buy more time to get the grades in and then it effects the students. She reported that
last year they worked really, really hard to get those grades in but this is a constant
problem. She noted that if faculty put that incomplete in there, because they haven’t
finished the grades, and we sometimes see this for an entire course, faculty are hurting a
lot of students and that is another reason to get those grades in at the end of the semester.
Professor Smith stated that he thinks that on some of these things, like people in
this room, know now, probably won’t be affected but there should be some concise way
to communicate this information to people. He noted that the typical faculty member will
respond differently to something that says the reason you have to get your grades in by
midnight on Tuesday is because federal regulations require it rather than the Provost
wants it done.
Provost Mageean noted that last semester, Dr. Joanne Goodell and she sent out a
joint memo and they did actually make reference to the fact that students would be
affected but she thinks that there is no harm in repeating and repeating and repeating the
message.
Dr. Sridhar stated that he will send a message out to everybody with some facts.
Dr. Margolius then thanked everyone for their attention.
Dr. Sridhar thanked Dr. Margolius for impressing all of us. We are really hard at
work trying to get these things moving.
Dr. Sridhar reported that another thing he just learned and he wanted to share with
Faculty Senate is that the smoking ban on campus is being enforced now. During the last
few weeks, over one hundred citations have been handed out to people who are smoking
on campus. He noted that it is good because we have a no smoking campus and we have
to enforce it.
An unidentified person inquired what the punishment is for smoking on campus.
Dr. Sridhar replied that he didn’t know; he hadn’t seen the citation but he will find one
and share that information.
Dr. Krebs reported that faculty members apparently seem to be really bad about
filling in their Faculty Profile. He noted that we have these web pages set up and it is
amazing how many don’t have them done. He also wanted to point out in Provost
Mageean’s presence that he found that half a dozen faculty members simply don’t have a
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page, it’s benched. Normally, you would have a page that will show that there is no link
because they haven’t filled it out but some of these pages are gone.
Provost Mageean remarked that it is a new secret of prioritization. Dr. Krebs
noted that these are active faculty members who have been here a long time. Provost
Mageean stated that she didn’t know who contains that. She wondered if it is Vice
Provost Teresa LaGrange’s office. She stated that she will find out and restore them to
their former profile.
Dr. Delatte stated that some departments are changing their web pages. In
Engineering, their pages just got changed and they are finding that once things change, a
lot of things need to be fixed. Dr. Krebs commented that the links show in Google but it
doesn’t go anywhere; it goes to a blank page.
Dr. Karem inquired if it is true that for faculty profiles they have to include a
selfie?
Dr. Sridhar noted that the next item on the Agenda is a PowerPoint presentation
from Jeffrey McClellan, the principle of the MC2STEM High School. The school has
been mentioned several times and they are actually on our campus and Jeff felt it would
be good to report on the school.
X.
Report on MC2STEM High School (Report No. 19, 2014-2015)
Mr. McClellan commented regarding his PowerPoint presentation that it is funny,
he is the principle of the STEM High School and it never fails that when he gives a
presentation, he does something with the technology that puts him behind when he starts.
Mr. Jeffrey McClellan introduced himself and said that he is the head of the
school for MC2STEM, which he knows most people are becoming familiar with either
formally or informally as our students trans across campus at different times of the day.
He noted that they have actually been on campus now a little bit over a year. He said that
it is really an honor to be in the position to have our eleventh and twelfth grades have
their home base here on the CSU campus. He stated that before he talks specifically
about the eleventh and twelfth grades, he wanted to give everyone an overview of the
school.
Mr. McClellan stated that MC2STEM is part of the Cleveland Metropolitan
School District and they have been open a little more than seven years. He was hired to
be the founding principle of the school so he moved to Cleveland. He officially started in
July and the school opened in August but he knew he was coming sometime in April and
so they started some of the pre work. He noted that the project itself started about
eighteen months before he was hired and essentially the story goes that Dr. Sanders, who
was the CEO of the district at the time, and the CEO of GE Lighting were having lunch
and talking about the way that GE could become more involved with the district without
necessarily making that all be based on financial transactions with the district. GE
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Lighting had space on the campus and so the two talked about what would it look like if
we put a high school right on GE’s World Headquarters for Lighting in East Cleveland.
So, that’s what started it. There was an RFP that went out with over eighty partners with
Cleveland State included in that mix. They were part of the team that started to design
what MC2STEM would look like. He pointed to a slide that talks about some of the key
design features. Students are admitted based on a lottery. Essentially, kids that express
an interest have an opportunity at some point to get in. The lottery consists of a drop
down list of schools in the district so they don’t fill out a long application. They don’t
interview the kids; they don’t do any kind of academic screening for the students to get
in. He emphasized that only because it is truly available to anybody to come into the
school. He said that he is also very proud of the fact that by the time the kids graduate,
almost every student who has graduated from the school has had the opportunity to go on
to college after they have graduated from high school. Now, some of the students have
chosen to take other paths but the fact that they are all getting accepted into college with
the exception of a few is a testament of the hard work of the teachers and the community
in the school.
Mr. McClellan said that they are embedded by design in STEM industry. He
asked, “What does that mean?” Referring to the next slide, which shows visually, the
ninth grade is at the Great Lakes Science Center, and our primary STEM partner, is
NASA Glenn Research Center. The tenth graders are on GE’s campus and the eleventh
and twelfth graders; he refers Cleveland as home base because really by design, the kids
are all over the City and all over the greater Cleveland area. They are doing internships
at places like GE Lighting, Rockwell Automation, Turner Construction; some kids have
done internships back at NASA. Right now there are twenty-five of our students who are
enrolled through the PSEOP Program at Cleveland State. There is also a student at
CASE and there are several students at Tri-C and one at Notre Dame College and kids
taking classes at Akron. He noted that the eleventh and twelfth grades are really using
the entire City of Cleveland as the campus.
Mr. McClellan stated that another major point of the school is the fact that kids
earn credit based on mastery outcomes as opposed to how much time they sit in a seat
and what they know at the end of that time. He noted that this is a major paradigm shift
from when high school is done and pretty much every other area in the community.
What it means is that when their kids start ninth grade, they say, “Here is what you need
to get credit for in ninth grade.” He noted that if they don’t finish it by the time the
calendar year for the ninth grade runs out, if they don’t earn their credit until they reach
those benchmarks, it could be tenth grade, it could be eleventh grade, and in some rare
cases, they may carry over some of their credits from ninth grade as incompletes to
twelfth grade. He said he is glad they don’t have to say Monday starts here at the
university level because those incompletes would kick them out of financial aid.
Mr. McClellan said that they have a one hundred percent free and reduced lunch.
The school district has a one hundred percent free and reduced lunch designation because
of the poverty levels of the City of Cleveland. If they hadn’t received applications back
from the kids which is the standard practice outside of the district, they would probably,
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if everyone turned them in, they would be somewhere between 90% and 95%. They do
pull kids in from some of the surrounding communities; they have about 18% of their
students right now that come from some of the surrounding communities. He noted that
they have had kids from as far away as Loraine and Hudson and a lot of places in
between as well.
Mr. McClellan stated that they are a year around school which means that the
students are in school for ten weeks, then they are off for three weeks, back for ten, off
for three and that essentially starts when they enter the ninth grade and finishes when
they graduate in June of their senior year. He noted that this presents a little bit of a
complexity when they have twenty-five kids here at CSU because obviously CSU is not
on the same calendar as the STEM School so they have a lot of kids that essentially never
stop going to school from when they start because they are either in an internship that
goes over those breaks or in classes on a college campus. When they are doing all their
work that kind of just continues until they graduate.
Mr. McClellan reported that the other big thing in the ninth and tenth grades,is
what is called a transdisciplinary project-based approach. Essentially what it means is
that the kids take six classes in ninth grade and those teachers in those six subject areas
design projects to allow the kids to demonstrate what they know in different content areas
through these projects that have big over-arching concepts. Right now, the ninth graders
are working on a project called “bridges” and obviously there are a lot of bridges in the
Cleveland area that they can study from the science, math and engineering perspective.
In the humanities, they are talking about how people sometimes are bridges between
different communities that don’t normally get together. In social studies, they are
looking at real life examples of people who kind of bridged different societies for
different reasons. Mr. McClellan said that what this does for the kids, it presents an
opportunity for us to really have the kids show us what they know. Obviously, one of the
things that would be great as a result of this, there are a lot of people in this room that
have a lot of expertise in different areas. He noted that Dr. Debbie Jackson is their main
point person here at Cleveland State and they are constantly getting things from her and
say, “Hey, we need somebody who can talk to this level or this concept or maybe
somebody who can come in and talk to the students about Romeo and Juliet; examples
are pretty much endless.
Mr. McClellan said that the other opportunity inside the capstone process, which
is what they call their project, is that they design these things collaboratively so the
bridges capstone actually started as a collaborative with them and Poly Technical
Institute in New York. They had some connections with some faculty there that were
involved in some of the high school STEM work and they came and helped them design
the beginning of this capstone. But, obviously being right here on campus in the center
of this university would be really great to access some expertise in development of these
capstones.
Dr. Eileen Berlin Ray asked the gender and the race breakdown of the school.
Mr. McClellan said that he can tell the gender off the top of his head – they are about
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86% African-Americans. Dr. Berlin Ray then asked about male and female, roughly.
Mr. McClellan responded that they are about 60/40 right now, male/female. He noted
that interestingly, their first class was 50/50, right down the middle and they have gone
back and forth over the years. They have 400 total students right now and they have
more freshmen than they have seniors so every time they get a new class, there is about a
25% opportunity for change one way or another.
Professor Krebs indicated that he had a structural question. Is this a traditional
high school in terms of Ohio requirements? For example, do they need the State of Ohio
physical education requirements?
Mr. McClellan replied, “Yes, we have to meet all the high requirements for
graduation – the State requirements and then also the local Cleveland Metropolitan
School District requirements for graduation too. Actually, right now, we ask our kids to
take five science classes and there are certain things we ask them to do on top of what the
State and the District says and the way that works out is that we just count one of those
science classes as an elective for the State or for the high school. But for us, they have to
take it.” He noted that the question about, are we a typical high school, they are also
bound by the same negotiated agreement that binds the other schools in the district. The
teachers are part of the Cleveland Teachers’ Union and all of the security and all of the
other people that work in the school are bound by that union that represents them for the
whole district.
Dr. Krebs inquired if the students do physical education here at CSU?
Mr. McClellan responded that they actually start PE at the end of ninth grade.
They take the entire school to CASE’s Western campus for six weeks. CASE does an
excellent sports program; it’s a summer camp that they have been running for over
twenty years. Even before they were on campus here, they don’t have a gym at either of
the other locations, so they are trying to be creative and that camp was a really great
opportunity for them to get involved in that. He noted that the kids will, while they are in
school, leave the Science Center and for six weeks are actually home-schooled in
CASE’s campus and they give them classroom space to run the classes and the kids
participate in the Camp-net. They start their physical education credit there and then they
finish it in the tenth grade. He noted that last year, they had the kids doing things here on
campus but it is not one of the things they have figured out really well yet because of the
transition time to the gym, but this year, the students are finishing it up at GE with some
research that they are doing tied with their other subject areas of health and wellness. Mr.
McClellan reported that they have been here at CSU thirteen months now and they come
in with visions of what this can look like and then come into the reality and you start to
work through what’s possible and what the barriers are. One of the things he is working
towards is to get to the point where when the kids are ready academically, you can’t tell
the difference between the normal Cleveland State student and one of their students;
whether that is access to the Rec Center or access to the Tutoring Service that are
provided or access to the other services on campus. He noted that they are not yet there.
They have scratched the surface in some areas but they have a long ways to go and he
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thinks that at some point too, reality needs to say, here is where we can get and then,
instead of just shooting for everything wide open, address the pieces they can reach.
Mr. McClellan said that he really didn’t have a lot of other things on his slide
presentation. What he presented is just a breakdown of the sites. He noted that one thing
he hasn’t talked about is each one of their sites is connected to a FAB Lab. The concept
of a FAB Lab started at MIT and it is around personal fabrication and MC2STEM was
the first school in the country to actually have a FAB Lab inside of the high school and,
at the tenth grade, GE dealt with the first one inside of the high school. It gives kids
access to laser cutters, vinyl cutters, 3D printers and what it really does is – we don’t
have classes; we don’t say go to FAB Lab class. It gives kids access to the tools that
allow some of these projects to be authentic prototypes. The movement inside of schools
has really grown since they started it and not because they started it but because a lot of
people realized the value probably around the same time that they did. So, now they
actually have a FAB Lab at the Science Center that the Science Center uses to train other
teachers and that our kids use. We have a FAB Lab at GE that GE engineers work with
and our kids work with. He commented on an interesting story: One of the lead
engineers on one of the LED GE lightbulb projects actually did some of the prototyping
on this bulb that they sell to Home Depot in our FAB Lab. We have a FAB Lab here on
campus that one of our former students, Andria Lane, who is actually a junior in
engineering here, is paid by Cleveland State to manage it. It is open to CSU students, it’s
open to the public on Saturdays and it is open late one day per week. He added that they
are starting to kind of blend the school environment with some of the other movements
around the area. They also have a mobile FAB Lab that they take to surrounding schools
and surrounding events. It has two laser cutters, has a 3D printer and has a vinyl cutter.
Someone has a race car trailer that they use to take the FAB Lab to an event and unhinge
and our kids can actually work with teachers and students and adults and the community
as a kind of interactive machine.
Mr. McClellan said that they have a long ways to go with the school. They have
received quite a bit of recognition from some outside sources for the work they are doing.
He noted that he was going to show everyone a video produced by the George Lucas
Foundation. The school is actually on the Foundation’s list called, “Schools that work”
and the school is recognized on their list of schools that work. They were also referenced
at the last “State of the Union Address” and, as President Obama was talking about
education, the slide came up on the screen and he said, “We need more schools like
MC2STEM.” The school was also just recently recognized by the State of Ohio for a
couple of awards based on the students’ achievement on standardized tests. So, there is
evidence that what they are doing is working. There is a lot more they can do. One of
the biggest opportunities they have is that if they can find out the best way to interact
with some of the faculty here in this room, there is potential to really help take the school
to the next level by finding ways to work together.
Dr. Sridhar commented that if anybody is interested in connections with the
MC2STEM School, Professors Debbie Jackson and Stephen Duffy and some engineering
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investigators of the Key Bank grant that brought the school to our campus may be
contacted.
Dr. Sridhar stated that our next item was to be a presentation by Mr. Joseph Han
on safety but he is not present so there will be no presentation.
XI.
Faculty Responsibility for Student Safety during Drills and Emergencies
There was no report for faculty responsibility for student safety during drills and
emergencies.
XII.
Open Question Time
Dr. Sridhar asked if there were any questions or anything else people wanted to
talk about. There were no questions.
XIII.
New Business
Senate President Sridhar asked if there was any new business. There being no
new business, Senate President Sridhar asked for a motion to adjourn. It was moved,
seconded and the meeting adjourned at 4:40 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
Debbie K. Jackson
Faculty Senate Secretary
/vel